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Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

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Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#151

Post by bradwestness »

protomyth wrote: post #94
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #11

The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will have any impact on them. The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.

Educational institutions using certain testing software from a textbook publishers will probably block updates also. The problem is that, like a lot of enterprise software, the testing sites are fairly fragile and don't react well to changes in browsers. After getting into a situation where students couldn't take tests do to an update, most system admins curse at the sky and then block updates until given the go ahea…

There are also things like JAWS screen readers and other add-ons that educational institutions MUST use to comply with ADA regulations which, surprise, generally depend on specific versions of IE to function (though personally the ones we use at my work are at least compatible with IE 8).

There's not really a very good alternative to this-- Firefox has a history of breaking it's extension model with every major version, and Chrome is still in relative infancy (though I personally use it every day), so I think it's understandable that "enterprise" software companies haven't rushed to ditch IE for them.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#152

Post by AmazingMe »

pyre wrote: post #58
radicalbyte wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that requires a change to the legacy application then it's never going to work. There's a reason companies can't upgrade from IE6 without a significant cost, and it is usually one of the following: 1) The company has lost the sourcecode, and the original engineers have left. 2) The company doesn't even have the source code, and has no rights to modify the application. 3) The application is vendor-supplied, and sai…

Adding a single header can be done as simply as using nginx as a 'transparent' proxy in front of the app. No need to make application changes.

or can be added to policy/registry that open http://legacyapp:6583 in ie6 frame.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#154

Post by eli »

dhkl wrote: post #74

Perhaps one of the reason why people are still capable of getting an acceptable Internet experience from IE 6 and 7 is because Flash 10 (and 11 for IE 7) supports them. Thank goodness that there is a strong traction behind HTML5 stack, and the industry as a whole is less reliant on Flash to deliver good UX. Without Flash, the capability of these older browsers will be reduced, and I'm sure they will get abandoned at…

No, people using ie6 are getting a crap experience. Seriously, fire up a vm and click around for a while.

The only people still using it are unable to upgrade for some reason besides laziness and inertia.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#155

Post by Legion »

robbrown451 wrote: post #129

What I don't understand is why doesn't Microsoft provide an upgrade that actually allows IE6 (and possibly other versions) to run as they did, on a site specific basis. This way corporations that need some IE6 only app can run them forever, but their employees can still use the rest of the web unhampered by this. Having it possible to run multiple "virtual browsers" within a single browser would also thrill web devel…

I would just like to see a standalone version of IE6, everything wrapped up in one binary, so that the silly, completely unnecessary one-or-the-other choice wouldn't exist.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#156

Post by hsuresh »

gldalmaso wrote: post #28
hendrik-xdest wrote: post #5

And here I thought that all non-updated IE versions were installed in environments where Sysadmins blocked the updates (and will in the future). It would be interesting to see a number of how many installations this change could really target. Like, how many IE 6 to 8 are actually in the wild. Can't be that much, imho.

>> Sysadmins blocked the updates There's something about this that really bothers me, maybe someone can better clarify. Why are admins enforcing a policy that leaves the company target to just about every possible security hole that has been fixed in the past 20 years? Is there a valid reason for this that I'm unaware of?

Legacy applications. When you have invested on applications that sadly work only on IE6, then you have no choice but to block the updates. It would be great if windows can run different versions of IE on the same machine, or even at the same time.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#157

Post by robbrown451 »

Legion wrote: post #155
robbrown451 wrote: post #129

What I don't understand is why doesn't Microsoft provide an upgrade that actually allows IE6 (and possibly other versions) to run as they did, on a site specific basis. This way corporations that need some IE6 only app can run them forever, but their employees can still use the rest of the web unhampered by this. Having it possible to run multiple "virtual browsers" within a single browser would also thrill web devel…

I would just like to see a standalone version of IE6, everything wrapped up in one binary, so that the silly, completely unnecessary one-or-the-other choice wouldn't exist.

True, that would help too, but it makes it challenging in a setting where people need to be able to email url's (possibly to the internal application) and the like. If it was specific to a domain or page, it would be a bit more seamless.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#158

Post by Elepsis »

olliesaunders wrote: post #148
veidr wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's still pretty lucrative, but for Microsoft, it doesn't go anywhere anymore. I am persuaded by some of the recent arguments (John Siracusa's maybe?) that both the innovation and the money in general-purpose computing industry have moved over to the consumer side of the equation, and that this change has put MS in a worse position than they've traditionally been in. Dominating corporate computing (for soooo f…

You say that the enterprise is “lucrative” and then you say that “megacorps want cheap” software. I don’t dispute either of these statements. I share the observation that price is the number one concern of those who don’t understand technology and that there’s a lot of money to be made in that space. But what to you think enables both of those statements to be true? Is it that developers are able to con technophobes…

It turns out that "cheap" software at the scale where you're rolling it out for thousands of employees, plus maintenance contracts, plus consulting fees, plus servers needed to manage all those PCs, plus... still add up to be a remarkably lucrative market.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#159

Post by ashraful »

webjprgm wrote: post #105
phillmv wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They forced an externality on to the rest of us. The marginal cost of sending updates to pirated machines is probably negligible, and pirates adapted to WGA within a couple weeks. So – they managed to convert a few Western users who didn't know they were running a pirated copy. I would place a good bet that the total volume of pirated licenses remained the same, though. More recent experiments have shown that piracy…

> running outdated software the rest of us have to support. Why would you support outdated software only used by pirates? Just don't support it to force the pirates to update.

I am from a developing country (Bangladesh) and use a pirated version of Windows (because you cannot buy the genuine one at stores). If I wasn't a web developer I would probably be using Windows XP and IE6 (easier to crack).

I regularly pay for stuff on the internet (domains, hosting, invoicing apps, ios apps, etc. etc.) as long as Paypal is supported (we cannot use credit cards to make international payments).

You need to support as many people as possible with your webapp, you never know who your customer is.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#160

Post by mbell »

tikhonj wrote: post #136
mbell wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind where browser usage statistics come from, in this case, NetApplications. If your not visiting some chosen list of sites you are not counted. Thus IE6 installs used mostly internally or stats from sites that don't really support IE 6 won't end up getting counted properly.

On the other hand, if you're developing a website for the general public, you probably don't care much about people who only use IE6 for internal sites either. If you rarely or never go on the actual internet, the fact that you're using an old browser doesn't matter any more than if you're using an old native program to do the same things. Of course, there is still the issue of people who do go on the internet but do…

Agreed however recall the comment I was replaying to, specifically this:

>IE 6 holds a 1% market share in the US. How many corporations in the US are mandating IE 6 if it's only got a 1% market share?

While the points you've made are valid they are irreverent to the discussion at hand.

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